Georgetown man sentenced to nine years for child pornography distribution

A Georgetown man who pleaded guilty Monday to 21 counts of possessing and distributing child pornography has been sentenced to serve up to nine years in state prison, prosecutors said.

Timothy Vaters, 44, was arrested in March 2011 after an investigation into a file-sharing network providing images of child pornography led State Police to Vaters’s home, Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office said in a statement.

“This defendant pleaded guilty to 21 indictments for his involvement with child pornography, a serious and disturbing offense, and will be serving time in a state prison,” Coakley said in the statement.

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In addition to his prison sentence, Vaters was also sentenced to five years of probation after his release from prison, ordered to obtain sex offender counseling, had limits placed on his use of computers, and was required to register with the Sex Offender Registry Board.

Prosecutors said Vaters pleaded guilty to 10 counts of possession of child pornography, three counts of dissemination of child pornography, three counts of posing a child in a state of nudity, four counts of unauthorized video/photo of a person in a state of nudity, and possession of marijuana.

When police searched his home last March, they seized computer equipment and a miniature camera that authorities claim Vaters used to videotape others in private. They also recovered 130 grams of marijuana.

According to the statement, further investigation of the computer equipment revealed a “substantial quantity” of video and picture files that police suspected to be child pornography and “significant evidence” that Vaters was distributing them using peer-to-peer technology.